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OPINION: Profiling Natasha As Segilola, Sweetheart Of 1001 Men

Published

6 months ago

April 6, 2025

By Festus Adedayo

Sorry, I digress. Gradually, the Nigerian presidency is putting finishing touches to its own sculpture of a village liar, Ìbídùn, it is busy carving. Or writing itself into the pathetic biblical story of an early Christian community in Jerusalem which witnessed a lying couple by the name, Ananias and Sapphira. Ìbídùn was the proverbial woman who, determined to make deception an art, walked close to a popular masquerader at the marketplace. Amidst the din of wild dances and celebration, Ìbídùn saluted the masquerader thus: “it has been quite a while!” In a masquerade cult shrouded in secrecy, where identity of the masquerader is hidden from everyone, male or female, except initiates, how did Ìbídùn know the personality shrouded under the agò (costume)? To capture Ìbídùn’s costly deception, my people say, “Èké Ìbídùn tií kí eégún kú àtijọ́”.

While the president junkets, off-the-cuff, to Paris like a chronic diabetic flying into the restroom, his Tańtólóhun dogs (Ref my piece, Obasanjo and Tinubu’s Tańtólóhun dogs, November 24, 2024) spin an embarrassingly deceptive refrain that he goes “on a working visit.” As this deception roulette is fast taking the toga of Ìbídùn’s lie, I have a cryptic projection for this uncritical lie: When the going goes, the come will end up coming. It is a literal lift from the Yoruba warning, “bí àlọ bá lọ, àbò nbọ wá bọ”. It warns of impending repercussions for the Ìbídùns. At a time when their home is burning, with more than 52 people reported dead in the recent Plateau State crisis, the president and his vice are trapped in the comfort of foreign lands.

I am back. Whether sponsored, contrived, deliberate or real, the discourses surrounding Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan since that space-induced altercation in the parliament broke out, would make you think you were in pre-colonial Nigeria. And Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, an incarnate of infamous 1930 sexual mascot, Segilola. Saheed Aderinto’s 2015 book, When sex threatened the state: Illicit sexuality, nationalism, and politics in colonial Nigeria (1900-1958) did justice to Segilola. According to him, one of the most detailed sexual narratives of that time could be found in the sexual memoir of Segilola, a Lagos prostitute. Written in Yoruba, its title was, Ìtàn Ìgbésí Aiyé Èmi Segilola El’ẹyinju Ẹgẹ, Elegberun Ọkọ L›aiyé. When translated into English, the book title reads, “The Life History of Me Segilola Endowed With Fascinating Eyes, the Sweetheart of a Thousand And One Men”. Advertised in the July 5, 1930 edition of the bi-lingual newspaper, Akéde Èkó (The Lagos Herald), the book, which British anthropologist, Karin Barber, called the first Yoruba novel, sold out during the period of its 30-chapter serialization in the newspaper. It became such a literary hot cake to gobble that it caused peer jealousy and rivalry between The Lagos Herald and the dominant newspaper of the time, The Nigerian Daily Times.

Born in September 1882, Segilola was a lady of noble parentage, sole survivor of her parents’ six children, who chose to commercialize her body for men’s sensual feast. From the time she lost her virginity to a herbalist whom she ran to for procurement of sex charm, Segilola courted men across generations. One of her lovers promised her pocket money of 10 pounds and another, between 1910s and 1920s, spent 30 pounds on her in three months. Knowingly or unknowingly, the adversaries of Akpoti-Uduaghan have attempted to cast her in the mould of Segilola. Her traducers sexualize her travails, belittle her courage and audacity, as well as her resistance to male chauvinism and the tyranny of her tormentors.

Akpoti-Uduaghan, like Segilola, is however an El’ẹyinju Ẹgẹ, in possession of a ravishing beauty. Her travails began as politics of space allocation on the floor of the Nigerian senate. Gradually, it transformed into sexual politics, reminding one of French historian, Michel Foucault’s discourse on sexuality. Foucault had submitted that there is a link between sex and relations of power. Today, the spat between this senator representing Kogi Central and president of the senate, Godswill Akpabio, has effectively polarized Nigerians along divides: gender, politics, etc.

Akpoti-Uduaghan is a prostitute. She appears on the floor of the Senate in transparent dresses. Senate is not a clubhouse. She has had four husbands and four children, so go the narratives. Even a newspaper, daily used as validation of federal power, did what it called an expose on the senator. With the title, “The Natasha we knew”, it lent assistance to Natasha’s adversaries in ill-sexualizing her, and positioning her as Segilola incarnate. This it did by excavating what it called her sexual past. The aim was to profile Natasha as a woman who has seen more men’s nakedness than an Ijaw fisherman can ever see shrimps. Or, as Cleopatra (70-30BC), Queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt. Cleopatra deployed her charm and bewitching beauty to seduce Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony, succeeded in having children for both.

On the social media, Akpoti-Uduaghan has further been profiled as possessing a feral ferociousness. Even Senator Adeseye Ogunlewe attempted to add a salacious dimension to the mix: “But the beauty of Distinguished Senator Natasha is a problem to her… there’s no doubt about that… when she’s passing, there’s no way a man will not look at that woman”, he said on a national television interview.

Contrariwise, Natasha is better suited for casting in the mould of Mekatilili wa Menza. Mekatilili was Kenya’s 19th century amazon, a precursor of Dedan Kimathi’s Mau Mau uprising heroism against British colonial imperialism. Mekatilili, like Natasha, suffered tar-brushes and profiling of the male gender and from even women of similar biology. As her Giriama people resisted British tyranny, Mekatilili was profiled as one of those who forced her people into blood oath administration, especially at the rituals held in July and August, 1913 at Kaya Fungo. History however today recorded Mekatilili as a feminist symbol of resistance, a strong woman from a marginalized ethnicity who challenged oppressive norms of a male-dominated society. In the Giriama resistance to colonial policies which led to the uprising of 1913, Mekatilili played a significant role.

The crossroads where Mekatilili and Akpoti-Uduaghan’s path would seem to have met actually happened at a public baraza (meeting) in Kenya. Mekatilili confronted Arthur Champion, British colonial administrator, swearing never to allow him enlist Giriama youth to work in plantations. Deploying an anecdote to depict the battle ahead, Mekatilili dared Champion to take away the chick from Mother Hen and see Mother Hen’s ferocious resistance.

Since the last one month or so when the initial spatial politics on the floor of the Nigerian senate began, Akpoti-Uduaghan has shown her traducers that they had taken away the chick from Mother Hen. You may not know the orthodoxies which she has thus far challenged, the battles she has resisted and the graphs she has redrawn in the socio-politics of Nigeria. The first graph she re-plotted is one which hitherto assumed that, every beautiful woman is a Segilola prostitute, a chattel and sex symbol. With the multiple battles Natasha has fought in the last one month; the strings – national and international – she has pulled and the upturn of the narratives she has made by internationalizing her battles, Natasha has shown that she possesses more brain than scores of her male colleagues who mark time in the Nigerian parliament. More instructively, she must have shown her constituents who thought her femininity was a drawback that she is a battleaxe stronger than many men.

If you can pull Akpabio to an inner sacristy and ask him what legislative hill he has thus far found most exerting to surmount, he would reveal it is the Natasha turmoil. Before now, if Akpabio was one who mistook the Ibadan Kudeti River for a mere erosion, now, he must have learnt that Kudeti is a raging river which sweeps off its captives in moments of rage. The major orthodoxy that Natasha has thus far succeeded in upturning is that, Akpabio is likely never going to take any person for granted again, regardless of their gender.

When Funmilayo Ransom-Kuti, a head teacher of a local school in Abeokuta, confronted the Alake of Egbaland, Oba Samuel Ladapo Ademola, while fighting the oppressive colonial tax regime, she saw the battle, like Mekatilili, as a feminist symbol of resistance. She thus rose above her marginalized gender to challenge oppressive norms of a male-dominated society. More tellingly, Ransom-Kuti saw the fight against the colonial rule structure as a fight between two gender weapons – the penis and the vagina. Said she: “Idowu, (Aláké) you have used your penis as a mark of authority against us for far too long a time; posturing that you were our husband. Today, however, the table has turned and we are poised to reverse the equation by deploying our vagina as a weapon of conquest to play the role of husband on you… O you former men conquerors, the head of the vagina has sought vengeance.” On January 3, 1949, the Aláké was forced to abdicate the throne. That speech was in part a feminist resistance epistemology. In Ransom-Kuti’s confrontation of an existing status-quo, howbeit unknowingly initially, you can see same picture, though minute, in the battle Natasha waged against Akpabio. She waged same war against the cabal in the senate and the clowns of Kogi State who blithely and brainlessly bungled the process of her recall. The battles are united by a fight for the supremacy of the genitalia, the penises and an apparently irrepressible female organ.

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR: OPINION: Now That Natasha Has Made Akpabio Happy

Very seldom is heroism an intended act. Indeed, most heroes transmute from disdain to the dais. Madam Efunroye Tinubu is as an example. In the beginning, she was just an economically influential woman in Lagos during the reigns of three kings, Adele, Dosunmu and Akitoye. However, by virtue of her grips on Lagos economy, Tinubu veered into the stronghold of political power, even assisting kings to gain power. She had a vast trade network of slaves, palm oil, firearms, cotton, tobacco, salt and coconut oil which extended to European merchants. After her exile to Abeokuta, she still helped Egba in the war against Dahomey, supplying them munitions. Even when the British signed the 1852 treaty with Oba Akioye for the abolishment of Atlantic Slave Trade, Tinubu was still covertly trading in her over 360 slaves, which today casts a pall on her heroism. She even attempted to assassinate the British Consul, Benjamin Campbell.

Today, as Mekatilili dared Arthur Champion to take away the chick from Mother Hen and see her ferocious resistance, Natasha is reproducing that trope. Apart from Akpabio, other accomplices of the fight to rout Natasha are feeling the wild push-back of Mother Hen. A petition against Akpabio and Senator Neda Imasuen is pending at the Legal Practitioners’ Disciplinary Committee (LPDC) to have both disbarred. Yahaya Bello and his sidekick, Ahmed Ododo have met their waterloo in the ferociousness of Mother Hen as she flew into Kogi in a helicopter. There is the tendency for you not to like Natasha’s ultra-boldness and self-assuredness in a patriarchal society like ours where women are expected to be reticent and timid as a cat; her beauty may even bring up to you the shadow of Segilola, but you cannot dismiss her unexampled heroine courage and against-method daring of evil men.

I have come to submit myself to the wisdom in one of legendary Yoruba musician, Ayinla Omowura’s songs, which says, it is not every leaf which the herbalist must pluck, neither should a wine-tapper climb every palm tree. Some leaves are poisonous while on top of some palm trees reside venomous vipers. Does Akpabio now know this?

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OPINION Generals, Marabouts And Boko Haram

Published

5 hours ago

October 6, 2025

Editor

By Lasisi Olagunju

General Lucky Irabor wrote a book that attracted a gathering of Generals in Abuja last Friday. Irabor, in the book, describes the January 1966 coup as “a shield that became a sword;” a solution that became a problem. He may be right. Bishop Matthew Kukah, who reviewed the book, described the January 1966 coup as the nation’s primary crime scene. I disagree. Nigeria’s real crime scene is located far before 1966. We still have not learnt any lesson.

General Irabor is the immediate past Chief of the Defence Staff. Born 5 October, 1965, he was a baby – three months, ten days old – when January 1966 happened to Nigeria. General Olusegun Obasanjo wrote the Foreword to the book and chaired the Abuja gathering. I have not seen what he wrote in the Foreword but I heard what he said at the book launch. He said Boko Haram was not about politics and not really about religion. So what is it about? He suggested that frustration and lack of “better life” perverted the pervert. He then wondered why terror and terrorism have become Nigeria’s way of life.

There were other Generals there. One of them is the Sultan of Sokoto; he belonged in the Armoured Corps. Another is the Etsu Nupe. Both of them left the army as Brigadier-General. The Sultan said Generals don’t retire. And because they do not retire or get tired, we keep seeing them in our lives beyond the barracks. Irabor’s book launch turned out to be a confab of Generals in search of what eludes them on the battlefield – victory over the collective enemy.

They were there looking for a solution to Nigeria’s interminable terrorism. I watched them and reached for 16th century English statesman, scholar and saint, Sir Thomas More. In his ‘A Dialogue Concerning Heresies’, More wrote a line which became the idiom: “looking for a needle in a haystack.” Our Generals need to interrogate that English clause locked in seven words of frustration. It speaks to their gathering. What they seek they won’t find except they really want to see it.

Irabor’s book carries the title: ‘Scars’ in bold, capital letters of blood. Beyond quotes from the review, I have not seen the book to get what his ‘SCARS’ really talks about. But ‘scars’ as book or as sabre cuts on the face cannot be anyone’s sweet story.

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR:OPINION: Dangote’s Oily Wars

Bishop Kukah, the book reviewer, said Irabor’s story is about Nigeria’s scars of insecurity; the ugly, unhealed, unhealable wound gashed on our collective face by Boko Haram. President Goodluck Jonathan was there with the Generals; and he got the metaphor right. He said the abduction of Chibok Girls is an everlasting scar on the face of his presidency; he hinted that it was a monument to leadership failure. But is Jonathan the only one with that scar?

Nineteenth century Scottish novelist and essayist, Robert Louis Stevenson (R. L. Stevenson) wrote ‘Treasure Island’, an excellent novel of pirates and blood, hidden treasure chests, death and disappointments. It was published in 1883. If you read more of Stevenson beyond his popular fiction, you would likely come across where he wrote the truth that our “wealth took their value from our neighbour’s poverty.” You would read how this someone who lived and died 131 years ago saw that despite the “free man’s” pretence to kindness, “the slaves are still ill-fed, ill-clad, ill-taught, ill-housed, insolently entreated, and driven to their mines and workshops by the lash of famine.” The passage reads like it is about 2025 Nigeria and its unfed, unclaimed, unclad, untaught children.

I watched the cream of Nigerian Generals, serving and retired, on Friday at that book launch of one of them. I watched them pontificating, one by one, on TV about Nigeria and its scars and I remembered Major-General Sir Thomas Vandeleur in R. L. Stevenson’s ‘The Rajah’s Diamond’, a story in his ‘New Arabian Nights’ published in 1881. Thomas Vandeleur is a General in blind, desperate but fruitless search for his family’s lost jewel. Nigeria’s Generals, like Vandeleur, old adventurers in uniform who once held the diamond of power, have ruled and been ruined by it. The nation’s story, like Vandeleur’s, is one of obsession with that fatal jewel called authority, which brings suffering to all who covet it.

Our Generals are helpless. That is what I saw at that event on Friday. Power has cast Nigeria’s fortunes into the river of defeat; it has left generations searching the muddy depths for the nation’s lost promise. Dethroned by coups and transitions, Nigeria’s power elite always come back as “handsome tobacconists” of democracy, reinvented messiahs and born-again democrats. They trade in influence and illusion; their scars, like Stevenson’s Vandeleur’s, are the marks of past violence disguised as experience, and their continued grip on Nigeria’s destiny shows that, though the diamond of nationhood is lost, its curse endures.

When I get General Irabor’s book to read, I will search for words that define wounds inflicted by bad and absent leadership, by aborted dreams and betrayed hopes. I will look for phrases, for sentences and paragraphs on heists that cut deeper into the nation’s face. I will love to read through its jagged pages of dreams deferred.

I scanned the Generals’ faces and read their lips. The gashes of insecurity, from Boko Haram’s bombs in Borno to herders’ bullets in Kwara, are the handiwork of decades of neglect and decay. The scar of insecurity has become our national birthmark, neither healed nor hidden; its permanence mocks every promise of reform. Obasanjo said at the book event that “Boko Haram is now virtually becoming part of our life. Should we accept that? If we should not accept it, what should we do? How much do we know? Even from the other side, and from this side, have we been active enough? Have we been proactive enough?” If a General and former president asked us those questions, to whom should we then turn for answers? Like Vandeleur’s scar, Nigeria’s wounds carry an ambiguity; they are signs of survival, yet also of complicity, for we are all, in one way or another, marked by a bad story we refuse to rewrite. General Irabor has done very well by writing a book that has provoked a discourse. We wait for others.

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR:OPINION: Hobbes, Nigeria, And Sarkozy

The Generals who spoke were very eloquent on the scars of Boko Haram. Did I not hear excuses for what the terrorists do and why they do them? One of the Generals even said “they (Boko Haram) never said book is haram.” Valuable minutes were spent doing definition of terms. Is that also a solution to the problem? They said so much but I didn’t hear a word from the Generals on the millions of out-of-school children who feed the machinery of terrorism and banditry. Today, Nigeria has an estimated 20 million out-of-school children, the highest number in the world. Read United Nations’ records: More than 60 percent of these children are in the northern states; they are the almajiri; the system is there till tomorrow; entrenched.

Was it not General Obasanjo who wrote in one of his books that “our fingers will not be dry of blood” as long as lice abound in our clothes? I agree with him.
Because we are a dirty, contaminated nation, lice keep laying their nits in the seams of our garments. The line of Boko Haram lice is lengthened daily by mass child illiteracy and adult disillusionment. Our Generals would not acknowledge that the poverty of our streets is both symptom and scar: proof of the violence of neglect and the betrayal of the future. They, and we, still do not see that in every Almajiri begging for miserable morsels of leftovers, the nation’s unhealed wounds find new violence and new weapons.

Then, there is Bishop Kukah’s jarring charge that marabouts have become a substitute for government and governing. He hinted that we’ve outsourced the leadership of the nation to some “blind clerics” somewhere. That statement should strike a chord with all who heard him. But because it is true, all who heard it pretended it was not said.

The Bishop was on solid ground when he uttered what he said. The proofs are everywhere: In August 2015, the Adamawa State government announced that it had earmarked N200 million to engage prayer warriors against Boko Haram. In March 2016, a certain Aminu Baba-Kusa, once a powerful executive director of the NNPC, appeared before the High Court in Abuja with a witness statement and disclosed in it that a total of ₦2.2 billion was expended, not for arms or intelligence, but for prayers, solemnly commissioned to hasten the fall of Boko Haram. The money went out in two waves: ₦1.45 billion first, then another ₦750 million. It was a contract sanctified by faith and sealed by silence.

Nothing that has happened in the last ten years suggests a change of strategy. Marabouts still cash out from a mugu nation and a leadership that worships in unworthy shrines. Kukah stepped on toes; he said the manipulation of religion for politics, using religion to enforce power, has become destructive to religion in northern Nigeria. It took remarkable episcopal courage for Kukah to say publicly that northern politicians use Islam for political cash-out. I watched the Sultan, calm and angry at Bishop Kukah for daring to stray away from the book he was asked to review into a realm angels fear to tread. As the Sultan spoke, the TV man’s camera panned to a defiant Kukah fiddling with a piece of pamphlet.

Speaker after speaker spoke on what they thought caused insecurity in northern Nigeria. I waited in vain to hear the Generals acknowledge that northern children, denied books and purpose, are the soldiers of chaos in Zamfara, Sokoto, Niger and, now in Kwara. In vain I listened to hear the truth from our Generals that today’s violent elements, products of a past of negligence, are proof that unattended scars can erupt again in new forms of pain.

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR:OPINION: On El-Rufai, Aláròká And Terrorists

Our Generals are searching for what is not lost. The spring head of terror and terrorism in northern Nigeria is the wrong religious philosophy which atrophies millions of children. Every child anywhere, including in northern Nigeria, wants and deserves what General Obasanjo called “better life.” A child who has opportunities for self-discovery and development won’t be readily available for employment by merchants of terror. Terrorism will dry out the moment its recruitment market winds up. Educating the street children of the North, and equipping them with the right skills will sound the death knell of Boko Haram and banditry, its brethren. But this is where even the Generals feared to tread last Friday. They were afraid of the clerics in whose hands lie the yam and the knife of power and privileges.

The people who spoke at that event were not up to ten. Several scores of other big men and women were there, silent and quiet, sometimes clapping. They either did not have the chance to be called to speak or they did not want to speak and be quoted into trouble. But, really, what is trouble? Trouble can sneak into the hole of silence. Jeff T. Johnson writes in his ‘Trouble Songs’ that “Trouble may appear in a title and disappear in a song,” and “’Trouble’ may sneak up in a song without warning.”

Trouble is Nigeria, the sick, denying its illness. Real trouble is homicidal or suicidal silence; it is treating eczema when leprosy is the ailment.

So, at the risk of courting abuse and insults and threats, I join Bishop Kukah in urging Nigeria to stop keeping quiet in the face of evil. Enough of saying that you do not want to ruffle feathers or open old wounds. Wounds that refuse to heal should be opened and given the right medicine. That is what heals.

A broken nation, sworn to silence, or to denial of truth, hurtles down a roller coaster of failure. Silence scars with ugly gashes. Screaming within, yet saying nothing out is sickness. The Yoruba say silence is the foundation of misfortune. Speaking out does not mean you will die young, broke and broken. Not speaking out when you have a voice is no guarantee for safety and comfort. Bishop Kukah’s Hausa proverb is the ultimate counsel here: “Not going to the toilet does not mean you won’t be hungry.”

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Group Defends VC Selection At FUGUS, Alleges Sabotage By Petitioners

Published

6 hours ago

October 6, 2025

Editor

A Civil society organisation, Kwararafa League for Good Governance has raised the alarm over what it described as a coordinated attempt to undermine the ongoing process of appointing a new Vice Chancellor at the Federal University, Gusau (FUGUS), Zamfara State.

In a strongly worded petition addressed to the Honourable Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, the group condemned a recent lawsuit filed at the National Industrial Court, Abuja, by three academic staff of the university, namely Professors Ahmad Galadima, Ibrahim Garba Zurmi, and Dr. Anas Sani Anka, against the university’s Governing Council and Management.

The petitioners had challenged the Council’s adoption of a minimum of ten (10) years post-professorial experience as requirement for applicants vying for the position of Vice Chancellor, a criterion they argued was designed to disqualify certain candidates.

In a counter petition to the education minister, the Kwararafa League insisted that the criterion was valid and aligns with directives issued by the Federal Ministry of Education and the National Universities Commission (NUC), particularly a pronouncement made by the Minister in May 2025, which emphasises on adherence to this standard by all university councils.

“It is important to note that for the fact that some universities refused to abide by the directive does not make it legal or constitutional,” the group stated in the petition signed by its coordinator, Samuel Bature.

The group also accused the petitioners of pursuing selfish agenda and attempting to destabilize the institution.

They alleged that the Pro-Chancellor, Hon. Aminu Sani Isaac, may have prior connections to one of the claimants who reportedly received informal assurances of being appointed Vice Chancellor despite not meeting the advertised requirements.

Describing the lawsuit as “baseless and malicious,” the group maintained that the university has operated in full compliance with applicable laws and guidelines, and called on the minister not to recognise or support the ongoing legal challenge.

“This representation is made in good faith, as a body committed to fairness, justice, and the development of education in Nigeria,” the petition stated.

The League also urged the Minister to direct the University’s Governing Council to take disciplinary action against the trio involved in the litigation, citing their actions as detrimental to the peace and credibility of the university system.

Copies of the petition were also sent to the Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), the President of the National Industrial Court, and the Pro-Chancellor of FUGUS.

As the legal and administrative battle continues, stakeholders in the education sector await the ministry’s response and the final outcome of the Vice Chancellor selection process.

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Oba of Benin Renews Bond With Ancestral Relations, Nigerians During Emorhọ Feast

Published

20 hours ago

October 5, 2025

Editor

The palace of the Oba of Benin was agog with activities during the 2025 Emorhọ fest, declared by Omo N’Oba N’Edo Uku, Uku Akpolokpolo, Ewuare II, Oba of Benin as part of activities to mark the ancient Emorhọ, otherwise known as the ‘New Yam Festival’.

Oba of Benin, who reenacted the age-long festival, renewed the bond that exist between him and his ancestral relations from Issele-Uku in Aniocha North Local Government Area of Delta State at the event, which attracted dignitaries, including Benin people, indigenes and non-indigenes across Edo State.

Members of the Benin Royal family, Edionwere (village heads), youth leaders across the various communities in Benin, market women group, palace chiefs, traditional priests and priestesses in Benin, were also in attendance.

A special prayer offered on behalf of the palace by Chief Enorense Ozigbo-Esere, the Osuma of Benin, paved the way for the commencement of the feast, where Secretary to the Benin Traditional Council, Frank Irabor, welcomed guests and highlighted the essence of the gathering.

Speaking in an interview, Oba Ewuare younger ancestral relations from Issele-Uku led by Chief Michael Odiakosa, expressed delight for the privilege to be part of the historic celebration.

He explained the relationship between Benin and Issele-Uku, reaffirming that, “Issele-Uku is an extension of Benin Kingdom. We are all descendants of Benin. So, we are at home”.

“We are in a safe place. We came to celebrate the festival with our father, the Omo N’ Oba, and we are happy to be here”, Odiakosa said.

On his part, 99-year-old Pa. Paul Osarumwense Oyemwen, the Odionwere of Orior-Ozolua community in Uhunmwode LGA who thanked the Oba for the gesture, said the festival is not new in Benin and it’s devoid of sacrifices.

Expressing her appreciation to the Oba of Benin, the ‘Edo markets leader’, Pastor (Mrs) Josephine Ibhaguezejele, noted that members of the group have been waiting anxiously for the opportunity to partake in the yearly festival, while praying God that the blessings of the festival to transform lives.

Also speaking, Pa. Daniel Osunde, the Odionwere of Idumwun-owina, N’ Iyeke-orhiomwon, also prayed for the Oba and thanked the first Class traditional ruler for his foresight.

Excited guests in their numbers were fed with African delicacy, amid dancing and jubilation, while members of Isikhian women group who gave a good account of their stewardship, were not left out in the celebration by the Oba who rewarded them with cash gift and other items in acknowledgement their duties in Benin.